Truly vile for someone who has a high profile as a rep of a country. Inexplicable why the guy has not been shown the door. Israel needs to immediately remove its social media maven (find some cover story, and transfer him to another job) for this Facebook post showing him in blackface supposedly “Obama style.”
It’s hard to find a government has allowed itself to have a spokesman who shows such a lack of dignity about this. Al Jolson (a great old time singer) has been hampered since his death with a bad image because he did his early 20th century stage and film work in blackface, as part of a traditional minstrel show. If Jolson has had this image, exactly how were people going to take this?
Suppose (and I can suggest this since my name is “Gandelman” and I had the delight of being the featured guest in a bris as baby) Jay Carny had posed on his Facebook page a photo of him with a fake cartoonish crooked nose, a yarmulke, holding up a CD of Fiddler on the Roof and a plate of Chinese food? (Don’t let me give Jay Carny any ideas).
Like it or or not his Facebook image gives Israel an image no matter how he distances himself. He is likely a superb member of the military. But right now as someone who is a high profile Israeli spokesman, his job doesn’t quite fit unless Israel doesn’t care about how to official in blackace labeled Obama is perceived by all of those who don’t think blackface is all that funny — a larger number of people all over the world.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.